Government grants for energy equal 40 pence per home (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

Government grants for energy equal 40 pence per home

April 2, 2008 10:40 AM

With the news that Department for Business (BERR) has said that no extra money will be put into the Low Carbon Buildings Programme, which runs until 2010 - the £10 million for households amounts to 40p per household across the nation.

Cllr Christian Vassie, Liberal Democrat Councillor said;

"The Local Government Committee is right to highlight the lack of insulation in existing housing stock in its report on tackling climate change."

"Even if every new home is carbon neutral by 2015 there will still be around 25 million homes that are not, with well over 6 million having been built over 90 years ago. These older houses emit twice as much CO2 as more modern housing stock."

"Smart meters, that give home owners and tenants accurate information about their energy consumption are important in the drive to help us all waste less energy. As of this month a further 30 City of York council buildings have smart metering. I am working to ensure that soon all our council buildings will have them."

"Given that the poorest people tend to live in the most energy inefficient housing it is also vital that the government gets to grip with insulation levels in existing housing."

"The house building booms that occurred after the First and Second World Wars left us with a challenge that must now be confronted. We need to develop standard methods of transforming the insulation levels in, say, traditional semi-detached houses and then roll out a programme to assist home owners and councils to make those changes."

"Government insistence that it is dealing with these issues is simply not matched by its actions. The government is currently allocating just 40p to each UK household to spend on green energy initiatives over the next two years."

"Only a fool would try to convince the public that 20p per household per year is a viable sum for delivering real progress on tackling climate change. You can't turn Brown into green."